Conflict between quantum, classical mechanics deepens

An international
team of researchers have reported1 new results that they say will
have deep implications in understanding "non-locality" issues in
quantum mechanics.

“Quantum and
classical worlds are in sharp contrast in the way they behave," Arun Kumar
Pati, Professor in the Quantum Information and Computation Group at the
Harish-Chandra Research Institute in Allahabad and a co-author in the study, told
Nature India.

Albert Einstein
believed that quantum theory should be local and that the physical properties
of a quantum system should be real. He, along with Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen,
published a milestone paper2 concerning local realism predictions
that go against quantum mechanics.

Despite Einstein's claims, Irish physicist John Bell in 1964 showed3 that
non-locality is an inherent feature of the quantum world that could not be
explained by any theory that preserved “locality”. He proved the contradiction
between quantum mechanics and local realism, thus giving birth to the notion of
"non-locality".

Quantum non-locality
is a consequence of the ability of quantum systems to exist in "entangled"
states, in which individual particles – no matter how far apart – are seemingly
connected as if by magic. If a measurement is performed on one of the
“entangled” particles, the state of the other is instantaneously modified – a
behaviour that may have applications in quantum communications and teleportation.
The notion of non-locality was further strengthened by Lucien Hardy, who reduced
the non-locality proof to two-particle states by presenting the famous Hardy’s
paradox4, confirming that quantum theory – to be consistent with the
experiments – must be non-local.

The physicists Jing-Ling Chen (left) and Arun Kumar Pati
"We prove a new result in quantum mechanics by presenting the most
general framework for the multi-particle Hardy’s paradox," says Pati. The
generalised Hardy’s paradox includes previously known results as special cases
and gives sharper conflicts between quantum and classical theories, says co-author
Jing-Ling Chen at Nankai University of China. "In actual experiments, our
method can display higher success probability in bringing out quantum
non-locality and hence is stronger than the standard Hardy’s paradox."

These results
not only advance the study of Bell's non-locality by presenting the most
general framework for the Hardy's paradox, "but also provide a feasible
proposal to experimentally observe the stronger paradox", the report says.

Pati says the primary outcome of the study is that the quantum world cannot be understood using
classical notions. "Although over a hundred years have passed since the
birth of quantum mechanics, it is surprising that one can still discover
bizarre paradoxes. The conflicts between quantum and classical predictions continue changing the way we understand what quantum theory really means."